Ordering and Grouping,
Organizing and Outlining
English 21 – Ms. Brown
Presentation Outline
• What is ordering and grouping?
• What is organizing and outlining?
• How do I use an outline? Why is it helpful to my writing?
Ordering and Grouping
What is grouping and ordering? How does
it help for writing assignments?
Ordering and Grouping
1. Ordering helps us arrange our ideas in a logical way, chronological
way, spatial way, or important way.
a. Logical order: big ideas to related ideas, A to B to C
b. Chronological order: morning to afternoon to evening, 1990 to 1995 to 2005
c.
Spatial order: left to center to right, up to center to down, etc.
d. Order of importance: least important to most important
2. Ordering is used with points (your opinions) and examples
supporting your opinions. You have the freedom to choose how you
order information, but your order should be clear. In other words,
your order should need no verbal explanation. Your audience will
understand just by following the progression of your ideas.
Ordering and Grouping
1. Grouping allows you to place related ideas together. Placing related
ideas together is important so your audience does not become
confused by your paper. The reader is allowed to follow a smooth
progression from one point to related idea to another.
Ordering
• Take a look at your generated ideas from Activity 8, page 30
• How are you going to group these ideas?
• How are you going to order these opinions? Are you going to use:
 Logical order
 Chronological order
 Spatial order
 Order of importance
• For example…
How am I going
to order the
following
opinions?
•Determined
•Giving
•Talented
Ordering
• In column 1, I would move in
chronological order from his days
as a community college football
player to a professional in the NFL.
• In column 2, I would move in order
of importance from what Rodgers
does for the community, how his
determination inspires others, to
how talented he is as a quarterback
in the NFL.
• Which one do you suggest as my
audience?
Column 1:
Time
Column 2:
Importance
Determined
Giving
Talented
Determined
Giving
Talented
Group ideas
together for
clarity!
Butte Community College
UC Berkeley
Both of these ideas are related to school,
so I’m going to group them together.
Now I am 1 example short, so I will
brainstorm and add more.
Chronological order:
Determined
Talented
Giving
Grouping:
Determined
•School examples
•Almost giving up
example
•NFL example
I would then make sure
that the examples for the
remaining points
(Talented and Giving)
are also related to one
another. I would group
or completely eliminate*
some options.
Eliminating occurs
when an idea is
unrelated or has no
place in the paper. You
simply throw out the
idea. You may be able
to revisit the idea during
the revision process
depending on how much
your paper changes.
Ordering and Grouping
• To summarize:
• Ordering allows you to arrange your ideas in a specific way. You choose the
order for your paper and the order should help the reader move from your first
point to your last point smoothly.
• Grouping helps keep related ideas together. This prevents you from saying the
same thing over and over again your papers. This also forces you to develop
strong support to fill in any gaps once you have grouped related ideas.
• Keep in mind that ordering and grouping may not feel natural to you during
prewriting. You should only begin to think about order AFTER you have
generated ideas. No matter what, everyone should engage in ordering and
grouping by the 4th step of the writing process. This step is called revision, and
we will discuss in detail later.
Organizing and
Outlining
What is organizing and outlining? How
does it help for writing assignments?
Organizing and Outlining
• We have covered in detail the first step of the writing process:
A. Prewriting (generating ideas): clustering, listing, questioning, freewriting
•
1.
We practiced clustering earlier this week. You have your cluster with my comments.
2.
You also completed the non-graded freewriting assignment.
The second step of the writing process is:
B. Organizing and Outlining (bringing ideas together): tree method, outline form
1.
If we do not use outlines, our papers may lack organization.
2.
Outlines help us prepare to draft.
1.
Should we always use them? Let’s watch this debate about outlines:
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/rewritingplus/aspx/Search1.aspx?bfw_topic=
Organization&PageNum=0#$c0a84dda:9b601d121ea388654-7f4b
Organizing and Outlining
• An outline for a paragraph has 3 major sections:
1. Main Idea (what your paragraph is about)
2. Support Points (your opinions)
3. Examples (backing up your opinions)
• Let’s take a look at how I move my prewrite to an outline…
Main idea: I admire Aaron Rodgers.
Support point 1: Aaron Rodgers has always been
determined.
Examples: He started at Butte Community College,
worked hard, and eventually transferred to UC
Berkeley to become their starting quarterback. He
once thought about giving up football to go to law
school, but he chose instead not to quit. When Aaron
Rodgers joined the Green Bay Packers in the NFL,
he sat in Brett Favre’s shadow for a long time, but he
always believed he had the ability to lead the team.
This is Aaron Rodgers looking very
determined. Very determined.
Outline
Support point 2: Aaron Rodgers is talented.
Examples: When he was 10 years old, he won a free
throw challenge in basketball. In addition to being
multitalented in different sports, he is the only
quarterback in the NFL to throw for 4,000 yards in his
first two seasons as a starter. In 2011, he took the
Green Bay Packers to win the Super Bowl.
Look at that throwing arm! He’s got so
much talent!
Outline
Support point 3: Aaron Rodgers is a giving person.
Examples: For two years from 2006-2008, he cohosted a charity golf tournament to help raise money
for cancer. In 2010, he partnered with a non-profit
called Twelve Days of Christmas to provide shopping
sprees for children in need. Most recently in 2012,
Aaron Rodgers partnered with the Make a Wish
Foundation to make a surprise visit to a fan suffering
from cancer.
Aaron Rodgers keeps it classy on and
off the field by giving his time to
worthy causes.
Outline
Sample Outline
I.
Main idea
II. Support point 1
I.
Examples
III. Support point 2
I.
Examples
IV. Support point 3
I.
Examples
Prewriting vs. Outlining
What are the major differences
between prewriting and outlining?
What are the major differences
between prewriting and outlining?
• Prewriting often does not
include:
• Outlining often uses:
• Complete sentences
• Structure (unless you use a cluster)
• Details
• Complete sentences
• A structure based on your ordering
and grouping
• You will naturally add more details
to the outline since you are writing
in complete sentences.
Let’s Practice!
• Activity 15, pages 56-57
1. There are 5 different lists. Read each list and practice eliminating the sentence
that does not fit.
2. For the remaining sentences, think of a big idea (main idea) that connects them
and write it down as a complete sentence.
3. Add the remaining sentences in one of the following orders:
 Logical order
 Chronological order
 Spatial order
 Order of Importance